


butterfly dreams

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth Wins, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, if I'd written the whole thing it'd be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Hawkmoth won, swapped Marinette's and Émilie's health states, and rewrote history so that only Gabriel and Nathalie know about the canonical timeline and only they and Émilie know about the Miraculouses in their possession.He thinks.Keeping Ladybug and Chat Noir apart is not that easy. Adrien wasn't kidding when he told her she's the girl of his dreams. And is Marinette a girl dreaming she's a Butterfly, or a Ladybug dreaming she's a girl?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Sabine Cheng & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tom Dupain
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	butterfly dreams

**Author's Note:**

> The outline is partly recapitulating canon through a role-swap funhouse mirror, mostly a mess, and I won't inflict it on you. (Also I've stolen parts of it for several other stories already.) But this bit (from probably the second fourth of the novel) I got into actual story prose, and it kinda sorta works on its own?
> 
> Marinette's Chinese given name is courtesy [e-milieeee](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/622935969483636736/bc-marinette-deserves-a-chinese-name).
> 
> If the colored font below creates problems with your site skin or whatever, turn the creator style off and the text will revert to default color; no worries.

"I heard this is where to get the best mille-feuille in Paris," says the customer: he might be about as old as Marinette would be, Sabine thinks. "Good thing they don't come in purple." The black hoodie he's wearing helps obscure his face, but he's holding himself like he's scared, and she can see his hopeful smile turn hesitant. "Zǐsè húdiésū?" he prompts; when Sabine continues to not react, his face falls. "Should've known," he mutters, and hands over cash in exchange for his layered pastry. "Keep the change," he says, and is gone before Sabine can protest.

Hours later, counting out the cash register, Sabine finds a sticky note on one of the euro notes. It's a plain square lavender post-it, with a simple stylized butterfly outline sketched sideways in black ink to fill the space—a papillon drawn on a papillon—and handwritten text. The upper wing contains the exact Mandarin phrase the boy in the black hoodie said earlier: 紫色蝴蝶酥, the first four characters in black and the fifth in red—'purple mille-feuille', it says, but the red character taken alone reads 'flaky pastry', and the four in black, 'purple butterfly'. The English words filling the lower wing are written in red as well: _loose lips sink ships (I hear this rhymes this way)_. Along the butterfly's body—

The center of the note reads 誠梅運 in black ink, in characters that (unlike spelling it _Chéng Méiyùn_ ) most French people cannot tell one from the next. _Black_ ink to write Marinette's name, not red. _Not_ red, and pointedly so! To write a name in red is to say that they are dead: if it isn't true in the present moment, there are always agents of misfortune who will try to correct that error. Sabine has been writing and burning letters addressed in red to her daughter for years.

Purple butterflies, and a boy her daughter's age: someone who is afraid to show his face and to deliver his message in plain French, and who wants Sabine and Tom to believe, however secretly, Marinette is alive?

**Author's Note:**

> [My comment policy](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know): tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.
> 
> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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